Bryony Ella is an interdisciplinary artist who creates in the liminal space between science and spirituality. Her work explores embodied and eco-centric dimensions to our relationship with nature, interweaving diverse cosmologies and perspectives with sensory-led practices.
Moving between painting, ‘wild drawing’, installation, creative writing and performance, her studio creates public artworks for nature-centred organisations, which are inspired by and grounded in academic research. These run parallel to studio-led bodies of work, through which Ella delves into myriad forms and qualities of transformation found throughout the natural world, alongside meditations on human capacities for, and resistance to, change.
Running throughout all of Ella’s work is a fascination with the concept of embodied ecology. This manifests in her practice as centring the body as an organic, porous and sensorial portal to more expansive understandings of human belonging in, and to, nature.
Page photograph credits: Alberto Romano, Michael Cadei, Ewelina Ruminska, Brendan Delzin, Ai Narapol. Artwork by Bryony Ella.
the art of embodied ecology
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‘Wild drawing’ is essentially the art of noticing through embodied attentiveness to our surroundings.
Engaging qualities of humility, empathy and wonder, the practice prioritises the sensory over the rational through experimental exercises that are grounding, simple, playful, messy and eco-centric.
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Studio ponderings, paintings, or ‘inklings’ in oil, ink and acrylic.
A body of abstract figurative explorations of embodied ecology through painting.
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Public artworks / collective wonderings on what it means to be human in relationship with the more-than-human world.
Developed through academic and artist collaborations, these interdisciplinary projects focus on engaging the public in research questions and processes, balancing data with wonder.
Browse the ‘Installations’ tab for selected projects
biography
Bryony Ella (née Benge-Abbott, b. 1984) is a Yorkshire-born artist of British and Trinidadian heritage. Her studio is based in Cornwall, South West England. She has a Fine Art BA from Bath Spa University and an MA in Museology from the University of East Anglia.
Over the past ten years, Ella’s artworks have been presented internationally in locations ranging from museums, galleries and festivals to cathedrals, rainforests and hospitals, her paintings acquired for private and public collections, and permanent installations undertaken across the UK and in the Caribbean.
Moving between the studio, en plein air and public realm, she regularly collaborates with academics and artists to direct and co-create projects inspired by environmental, ecological and climate research. This builds upon her background in social history and science public engagement with museums such as The Women’s Library, the V&A Museum of Childhood and the Wellcome Collection. Between 2016-2020, she established the inaugral public exhibitions programme at the UK’s largest scientific research lab, The Francis Crick Institute.
In 2019, Ella’s commitment to science engagement with a social justice focus through public art was acknowledged by the Mayor of London, who highlighted her as part of the city’s centenary International Women’s Day celebrations.
Since then, she has worked on public and participatory projects with organisations such as the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the British Ecological Society, University College London, Butterfly Conservation, the Grantham Institute - Climate and the Environment at Imperial College London, William Morris Gallery, Patagonia, COCO Dance Festival Trinidad, Right to Roam, Octopus Energy, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, LDA Design, Oxford City Council, Islington Council and Fusion Arts Oxford.
Currently, Bryony Ella leads on the public engagement programme for Wellcome Trust funded project Melting Metropolis, which studies histories of urban heat and health. As Research Artist, she has been embedded within a team of environmental historians at the University of Liverpool and Queens College City University of New York (2023-2026). During this time she has delivered public realm and participatory creative projects inspired by academic and community research, alongside co-supervising a PhD researching embodied geographies of heat in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Recently, Ella contributed a chapter on the experience of belonging in nature for Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You, which was published in 2024 by Bloomsbury with the Right to Roam campaign. She writes about embodied ecology as a creative practice on Substack.
C.V.
EDUCATION:
MA Museology, University of East Anglia
BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting, Bath Spa University
BTEC Diploma Art and Design, Kent Institute of Art and Design
Research & residencies:
Research Artist, University of Liverpool, Melting Metropolis, 2022 - 2027
Visiting Researcher, Queens College, City University of New York, 2023 - 2024
British Council Circular Culture Programme, Trinidad, 2023
Corbin Wildlife Sanctuary, Tobago, 2023
DECIDE project, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, 2022
Cultural Reforesting, Orleans House Gallery, UK, 2021
Artist Research Lab, Fusion Arts Oxford, UK, 2021
Public COLLECTIONS:
Orleans House Gallery, Richmond Borough Art Collection
The World Reimagined Collection, UK
SELECTED public commissions:
Stand of the Sun: A solstice ritual for the melting metropolis, University of Liverpool at Orleans House Gallery
My Body is a Sundial, sculpture with Melting Metropolis, University of Liverpool, funded by Wellcome
Imaginal Cells, film, Digital Black Dance Ecologies seed commission, AHRC, Royal Society of Geographers
Alkemy of Sound: Planting Dirt, performance with A K U Z U R U, British Council Americas, COCO Dance Festival
The Colour of Transformation, film, Arts Council England, Butterfly Conservation, William Morris Gallery
The Dataset’s Dream, installation, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UKRI
Broad Meadow, streetscape, LDA Design, Oxford City Council
Take the Time, mural, Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, Octopus Energy
Tributaries of Knowledge: Still We Rise, installation, The World Reimagined, Liverpool & London
Turnpike Lane Shutter Gallery, mural, Haringey Council, London
Freeling Street Pocket Park, streetscape, Islington Play Association
Biophilia, mural, Great Ormond Street Hospital
Fern Protection, mural, Rape Crisis England & Wales
Interconnected / Thank You, mural, Fusion Arts Oxford, Oxford City Council
Follow the Lichen, mural, Zero Emissions Network, Islington Council
Love Your Space, mural, St Mungo’s Homeless Shelter
Botanical Bentley, mural and exhibition, Bentley Priory Museum, Arts Council England
SELECTED Group SHOWS:
What the Ancestors Whispered, DēpART, FUZE Caribbean Art Fair, 2025
Cultural Reforesting, Orleans House Gallery, London, 2025
See Here Now - Art in a time of urgency, The Place Collective, Grizedale Forest, 2025
Right to Roam Kernow, Falmouth, 2024
COZY: Comfortable in my skin, Gallery OCA, London, 2023
TRACE, Chilli Art Projects, London, 2023
Lines of Dissent, Orleans House Gallery, London, 2022
Entwined: Plants in Contemporary Painting, 20 21 Visual Arts Centre, North Lincolnshire, 2022
Spaces In Between, W1 Curate & Everyday Racism, London, 2022
Some Of Us Are Brave: The Feminine, Form and Function, CasildArt, Oxford, 2022
Remember The Future, Orleans House Gallery, London, 2021
Black Box, Disrupt Space, London, 2021
Six predictions of Edinburgh’s future green spaces, British Ecological Society, Edinburgh, 2021
Visions of Science, The Edge Gallery, University of Bath, 2018
The Other Art Fair, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, 2016
Solo Exhibitions:
Anima, Campbell’s Art Gallery, London, 2022
Awards & Prizes:
Digital Black Dance Ecologies, Imaginal Cells, AHRC, 2024
National Lottery Project Grant, The Colour of Transformation, Arts Council England, 2022
Hidden Credit: International Women’s Day, Mayor of London, 2019
Visions of Science, Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath, 2018
Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England, 2016
Trevor Walden Travel Award, National Museums Kenya, 2011
SELECTED Press / Publications:
Bryony Ella’s Solar Cartography of Urban Heat, Made in Bed, Sotheby’s, June 2025
Creator of the Month, The Great Outdoors Magazine, August 2024
Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You (Chapter: Belonging), Bloomsbury, 2024
How can art transform our relationship to nature?, Black Earth Podcast, May 2024
Taking Space in Nature: The Power of Change, Environment Magazine, March 2023
The Dataset’s Dream, Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, March 2023
The Colour of Transformation, Where The Leaves Fall, February 2023
Green Visions: When artists and ecologists meet, The Niche (British Ecological Society), Autumn 2021
Life Lines, bind collective, May 2021
Bloom where you are planted, Jackson’s Art, July 2020
The Rebel Zine, Edition 1, Newham Extinction Rebellion, 2020
Framing the Conversation, Technology, Design & the Arts: Opportunities & Challenges, Springer, 2020
ACADEMIC PRESENTATIONS:
Public Engagement in Environmental History, European Society of Environmental History, Sweden, 2025
Imaginal Cells with Digital Black Dance Ecologies: Royal Society of Geographers AGM, London, 2024
Embodying climate through art, space and time, World Congress of Environmental Humanities, Finland, 2024
Drawing the Melting Metropolis, Future of London Conference: Climate Resilience and Equity, RSA, London, 2024
Professional membership:
Re-Wild Yourself Champion, 2025
The Place Collective
Honorary Associate, Department of History, University of Liverpool
UK Climate Reframe Network
Visiting Scholar, Queens College CUNY, New York
Community of Practitioners (CoP), Orleans House Gallery
Curatorial roles (2009-2020):
Public Engagement Manager, The Francis Crick Institute
Exhibition Registrar, Wellcome Collection
Interpretation Manager, Easy Tiger Creative
Curator, The Women’s Library
Exhibitions Officer, Brent Museum and Archives
Curatorial Fellow, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
Curatorial consultancy: V&A Museum of Childhood, National Trust, Disrupt Space, Black Cultural Archives
